Haven't gotten the hang of Civ3 yet :(

[shyguy74]

Hey,

I just discovered apolyton.net after a couple weeks of playing Civ3. After reading Velociryx's Guides, I'm still feeling rather overwhelmed by this game. So here's a rundown of questions that either I couldn't find an answer to or I'm still unclear over.

1) Do you have to decide what type of game you want to play beforehand, or can you play it by ear, and once you figure out the map and civs, then you can decide whether to conquer or some other method of victory?

2) I'm not sure how fast to expand at all. For instance, I was playing French, and I got up about 10 cities, several of which were an attempt to block several other civs from expanding. So I had a lot of 1 pop cities, roads connecting them all. But then Germany declared war on me, and I was woefully unprepared. So it seems like I either have to start building troops and sacrifice expansion or run the risk of war. Or is there a middle ground?

3) Under despotism, is it wise to always convert population to rush build? I was doing that to pump out settlers, which is why I always had 1 pop cities.

4) Do I need a warrior/spearman in every city, or just the ones that run a risk of being attacked?

5) When do I start building improvements rather than a constant flow of settlers/workers/military?

6) What are worker priorities? I know I read I should immediately build a road, especially on a bonus tile. And I also read a primary goal should be connecting cities. So should I be mining or irrigating at all at the start? Do I always do road, then mine/irrigate on any given tile? Also, am I right to assume it's worthless to start improving every tile in a city radius until the population is large enough to make use of it?

I have a ton more questions, but I'll save it for another time and for after I reread all the strategy guides again.

[Ironwood]

Originally posted by shyguy74
I just discovered apolyton.net after a couple weeks of playing Civ3. After reading Velociryx's Guides, I'm still feeling rather overwhelmed by this game. So here's a rundown of questions that either I couldn't find an answer to or I'm still unclear over.

Given that I have begun winning on Monarchy, I think I'm qualified to give advice here.

Originally posted by shyguy74
1) Do you have to decide what type of game you want to play beforehand, or can you play it by ear, and once you figure out the map and civs, then you can decide whether to conquer or some other method of victory?

Well, it does help to have a coherant strategy. I prefer to play an honorable (not necessarily peaceful) game. I *do* declare war when necessary, but only when I need to; I don't set out to conquer the world. I prefer a cultural or diplomatic victory (but have won conquest victories by default).\

There are a few things you need to be prepared to do:

1. An early war can work wonders. I would recommend waiting for them to come to you. Spend time building cultural improvements, barracks, etc. Don't build your military beyond what you need to stall the enemy, just yet. That extra gold is much better spent researching and paying for improvements (and, of corse, buying tech from your neighbors).

At some point, they'll come to you demanding something for nothing. If you feel confident you can hold them off until you've got a sizeable military (this generally involves a good number of horsies), go ahead and refuse. If there's even the slightest doubt you can hold them off long enough, give them what they want. Then build your military (a stack of at least six swordsmen, a few horsemen, maybe a few speermen to hold the captured cities). Then demand they give something in compensation (something outrageous). If they refuse, declare war, and fight them until they are prepared to surrender everything. If you built your culture like I advised earlier, you won't have any trouble with defections. (I haven't had a defection work against me since my third game or so.)

You'll likely get lots of tech, money, and maybe access to a resource or two out of this. On top of that, you will have an unassailable position on your continent. It isn't necessary (or even efficient) to wipe them out (as it was in previous versions of the game); just get them to surrender unconditionally (wait for them to contact you). From this position, you can pretty well take the game in whatever manner you choose

Originally posted by shyguy74
2) I'm not sure how fast to expand at all. For instance, I was playing French, and I got up about 10 cities, several of which were an attempt to block several other civs from expanding. So I had a lot of 1 pop cities, roads connecting them all. But then Germany declared war on me, and I was woefully unprepared. So it seems like I either have to start building troops and sacrifice expansion or run the risk of war. Or is there a middle ground?

Generally, I spew out settlers and escorts first thing, waiting until I no longer need any more to fill the area. Just see to it that every city has a defender. Don't worry about expanding faster than everyone else. What you don't found, you can conquer. But do try to expand as quickly as possible, except in one possible case:

The Germans. They are some agressive bastards. When you have them for neighbors, watch them very closely. See to it that any neighboring cities have two defenders (try to get a few horsemen in there somewhere, or at least archers, or chariots). Often, they don't even make any demands or any declarations; they just attack without provocation. I have, thus far, lost every game in which I started out neighboring the Germans (twice while playing India). I need to find a way through this. They are a special challenge.

Originally posted by shyguy74
3) Under despotism, is it wise to always convert population to rush build? I was doing that to pump out settlers, which is why I always had 1 pop cities.

I don't generally pop rush often, and almost never pop rush settlers (except possibly in the case where I've got a city based in a wheat filled flood plain, next to another wheat filled flood plain, and can crank them out like mad). I only pop rush where I really need it, like in a recently conquered city where I want an insta-temple, or a threatened city where I want a defender NOW.

Originally posted by shyguy74
4) Do I need a warrior/spearman in every city, or just the ones that run a risk of being attacked?

You need one in all of them, because if the front falls, who will hold the rear? In addition, early on, before you've got solid cultural borders, potential enemies can and will wander through your unintegrated territory. Longtime allies who you have a right of passage agreement with may also decide that a nice way to start a war would be to hit your undefended cities (the Iroqois did this to me recently).

Not to mention the fact that under despotism, monarchy, and communism, those defenders also act as police.

Originally posted by shyguy74
5) When do I start building improvements rather than a constant flow of settlers/workers/military?

I generally find I have time for an improvement between settlers. Explorer (next city defender), Defender, Settler, Temple, Settler (since a religeous civ can construct a temple in the time it takes for a city to grow back to size three).

Originally posted by shyguy74
6) What are worker priorities? I know I read I should immediately build a road, especially on a bonus tile. And I also read a primary goal should be connecting cities. So should I be mining or irrigating at all at the start? Do I always do road, then mine/irrigate on any given tile? Also, am I right to assume it's worthless to start improving every tile in a city radius until the population is large enough to make use of it?

DEFINATELY!

Look at how the squares actually work, and think logically about this.

Start by figuring out the quickest way to get a city as productive as possible. If there's a lot of plains, and a nearby body of fresh water, you *definately* want to start irrigating. I generally irrigate and then road. Population growth is very important; it determines how often you can pop a settler, and how quickly you get to working more tiles. At this level, you can double your production just by getting to size three.

If, however, you're working in grasslands, just road it... and then MINE it. Mine the one you're on before roading the next one; no sense wasting any time moving about. It's already producing as much food as it'll produce before you change governments, but it can produce more production. You can always irrigate over it later on, if you wish, though you probably won't before discovering Sanitation. This will enable you to build those improvements between settlers.

Once you've got three squares improved, go ahead and move on to trade and military road building (between cities). You won't need any more improved squares until you're done popping settlers, at which point you bring back the workers to continue doing their job. I prefer to mine grasslands, unless I really need that extra food to populate other areas (for example, the two grassland squares in an area filled with hills, plains, and deserts). I generally only start mining hills once I want to stop my population growth (once my happiness improvements are working at full capacity). This can happen rather early in an era of Temples, before either Construction or Monotheism is discovered.

Build roads everywhere and anywhere. They give a trade bonus for every single type of terrain that exists. I'm willing to bet if you could hack the game to road the ocean, it'd give you a trade bonus there, as well.

[DaXX]

ok you've been playing 2 weeks right? play for 2 more years and you will have a much better grasp on the game

[DaveV]

Some observations:

Use workers to improve the squares you're actually using first! This may seem self-evident, but I've seen a lot of games where people don't follow it. Don't send your workers into the hinterlands to improve some prospective city site when your core cities aren't fully improved. Corollary: don't spend your workers' time on improvements that will be lost to waste/corruption. Most of your production will come from your capital and the cities immediately surrounding it: outer cities will lose most of their production to waste anyway, so there's not much point on mining their squares.

You'll be in despotism for a long time, so most squares can produce at most two of a given resource. My early game priority is food, shields, commerce. City squares will produce two food and one shield on pretty much any terrain, so I like to build on squares that would otherwise not be worth much, like tundra or desert. My favorite squares outside the city square will produce at least two food and two shields: forest/game, mined bonus grassland, or mined cattle. I mine before I build roads: I want to crank up my production so I can build more units.

In the early game, my goal is to fill up a chunk of land; during this phase each city builds warriors until it can build a settler. Building units early helps me in a lot of ways: exploring (more important than ever, since it leads to finding resources and making contact with the AIs), tipping huts, staking out land, providing early warning against barbarians and hostile AIs, and fighting if I need to. In despotism, you can have four free units per city, so there's no penalty for building up your army. The AI will treat you with more respect if you have a bunch of units on the map. The AI doesn't care whether your units are warriors, workers, or some super unit: it just looks at the ratio of the number of units each of you has on the map. I think it's best to build warriors early and try to catch up to the AIs' starting bonus. Once I have some productive cities and I'm nearing my limit of supported units (see the top of the F3 screen), I'll start building some better attackers and defenders.

I try to fill up all the land that the AI gives me before I build any improvements. Once the borders are established, I like to rush temples on the borders (since I'm partial to religious civs).

[zlandar]

Civ3 differs from Civ2 in that the two cost in population really slows down the rate in which you can crank out settlers. The AI civs also differ depending on their background, so the Germans, Russians, and a few other militaristic civs tend to attack in force if they see you with a bunch of cities and no military force. If you start off next to one of these civs, I personally find it necessary to expand away from them if possible and keep a decent force in the cities bordering those civs. I usually just hand over whatever tribute civs demand unless I'm itching for a fight with units at the ready. Otherwise the CPU tends to backs up their threats as you'll notice encroaching units slowly building up at your border. Start a war only on your terms, preferably allying with a neighboring civ so you can tagteam the civ and quickly overrun it.